A Nest of Linnets

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“I am not one of those who say so, Mr. Long.”

“I am certain of that. Still, she is a child, and I am an old man—— Ah, no! you need not be at the trouble to protest; I shall probably live for twenty years yet; but when she was born I was old enough to be her father. Can I expect to have the girl’s love of that dear girl? I am not so foolish as to entertain such a dream. I have her gratitude, her respect, her regard, everything except her love. That is impossible.”

“I do not know that it is impossible, sir. She is not as other girls are.”

“It is impossible, my boy; I know it. It must be impossible, because I have not asked her for her love. It is impossible for me to love her with the love of a lover—with the love that is love. I did not offer her love when I asked her for her promise.”

Dick looked at the man with something akin to wonderment in his eyes.

Mr. Long rose from his chair and slowly walked to and fro some half-dozen times. Then he went to one of the windows and looked out. On the pavement a large number of notable persons were strolling. Mr. Edmund Burke was there; he had arrived in Bath the previous evening, and he was walking with Sir Joshua Reynolds and Miss Theophila Palmer.

The voices of the crowd outside only seemed to increase the silence in the room.

But still Dick did not move from his place.

Then Mr. Long walked from the window to the chair which he had occupied. He looked for a long time at Dick, as if debating with himself what to say to him. The prolonged silence was almost embarrassing to the younger man; but he felt that he was not called on to speak. And still the elder man sat with his eyes fixed on him, but with his thoughts far away, and still the faint sound of the laughter and the voices in the Street came intermittently to the room.

“I have spoken somewhat enigmatically, Mr. Sheridan,” said Mr. Long after this long pause. “I shall do so no longer. I told you that it is impossible for me to offer Miss Linley the love which I know you deem impossible that any man should withhold from her. Why? you will ask. My answer to you is that I have loved. It is difficult to make some people believe that there is no past tense to the verb ‘To love’; but I do not think that I shall have such difficulty with you. The man who says, ‘I have loved,’ is saying, if he speak the truth, ‘I love.’ Mr. Sheridan, when I say to you, ‘I have loved,’ you know what I mean. It was close upon forty years ago that I found her; and time has dealt graciously with her; for while I have grown old, she is still young and joyous and sweet. The laugh of the girl still rings through my heart as it did forty years ago. There are no wrinkles on her fair face; there is in her expression nothing of that fear of growing old which I have seen and shuddered at in the faces of many women. Perpetual youth—perpetual youth. God’s best gift to any human being—it has been bestowed upon her by the goodness of God; for those who die young have been granted the gift of perpetual youth. Our wedding-day came, and on that very day she was borne to the church in her wedding-dress, and with the wedding-flowers about her. I stood beside her, and, instead of hearing the Service for the Dead spoken as it was that day, I heard the Marriage Service that was to have been said between us.... Forty years ago ... and she is still young—unchanged—untouched by the terrors of time; and I have been true to her—every day—every hour. I smile when I think of her, and I know that she is smiling in return; I am joyous at my table because I know that she is sitting opposite to me, and I can walk through the woodlands which surround my house, taking pleasure in observing all things of nature, feeling that she is by my side, sharing in my happiness.... My boy, you, I know, can understand how it is the truth that I have told you when I said that I could not ask our dear Betsy to love me because I could not offer her that love which is love.”